Students, Stars Rally To Prevent AIDS

BOSTON—Approximately six hundred local college students and community members rallied in support of more funding for global AIDS prevention and treatment, braving wet and frigid weather yesterday underneath the concrete overhang of City Hall.

Organized by the Student Global AIDS Campaign, the rally featured impassioned speeches from Ms. Universe 1999 Mpule K. Kwelagobe, Harvard Economics Professor and Director of Center for International Development Jeffrey D. Sachs ’76 and a phone address from movie star and comedian Chris Tucker.

Over one hundred Harvard students, primarily from the Harvard AIDS Coalition, were present with signs, drums following Aids Action Week at 50 college campuses nationwide.

Organizers said the U.S. allocates $200 million to fight the African AIDS epidemic and demanded an increase to $2.5 billion in funding.

“Considering that it was raining, the fact that we got so many people out there, it made a statement that we are fighting,” said Gabe I. Chodorow-Reich ’05, a member of Harvard AIDS Coalition.

“It shows that there is a movement behind those in the political leadership who demand funding to fight AIDS,” he said.

Tucker, who was unable to attend the event because his private jet pilot believed the stormy conditions were too treacherous to fly through, still found a way to support the call for more funding.

In a phone interview with The Crimson, Tucker said that he was impressed by activists “out there on their weekends thinking about things others are not.”

Tucker is currently working on a comedy film, Mr. President, in which he plays a United States president concerned with the issue of global AIDS proliferation.

“I have always been aware of this problem, but I had not been active until I saw the stats and numbers after doing research for the movie,” Tucker said.

Sachs, who asked Tucker to speak, spoke shortly after Tucker’s call.

“It is as simple as dollars and cents. We can keep millions of people alive if it weren’t for our stinginess,” Sachs said.

Sachs also read a four-page letter written at 2:00 a.m. yesterday morning by rock star and activist Bono, U2’s lead singer who also spoke at Harvard’s Class Day last year.

“Do you believe your own rhetoric?” Bono wrote. “Are you ready to invest in the future? Are you ready to believe in the idea of equality?”

Kwelagobe, 22, is a native of Botswana and has made the African AIDS epidemic a priority since winning Ms. Universe. “I realized I had a huge platform to educate people.”

“It’s like driving a car,” Kwelagobe said in five-inch heels. “We use seatbelts like condoms, as a precaution. We don’t go around driving like a maniac.”

Elizabeth A. Kaplan, a Williams College sophomore who is HIV-positive and contracted the virus from a blood transfusion, shared her experiences.

Kaplan, an AIDS activist since high school, encouraged others “who weren’t driven by personal experiences” to join her in the fight against HIV-AIDS. Other students from local universities including Brandeis, Tufts, Boston University, Boston College and Mount Holyoke joined those from as far away as the University of Maryland.

“As future doctors, we want to show that we are not indifferent to the people {stricken] locally or abroad,” said Margot L. Albeck, one of 40 Harvard Medical School first-years who made the trip to Government Center. “We do not want to be bystanders as this crisis unravels.”

Between speakers, Co-Founder of Student Global AIDS Campaign Ben M. Wikler ’03 led chants, and Gumboots, a Harvard dance group led a lap of hopping and singing around City Hall Plaza.

Protestors culminated the over three-hour-long program with a minute-long silence.

—Staff writer Justin D. Gest can be reached at gest@fas.harvard.edu.